Language, Class, and Education: Deconstructing the Centre to Rethink Inclusivity in Education in Pakistan

In COVID-19 times, as learning gaps widen and socioeconomic inequalities exacerbate, inclusivity in education becomes even more important. This paper evaluates inclusivity of educational institutions in the multilingual context of Pakistan at the interstices of class and language, based on some key findings of a 3-year qualitative research that captured the lived in experiences of 36 participants in schools, tertiary education, and beyond. A multiple case study design was used. The instruments were: a) in-depth ethnographic interviews; b) participant observation and c) documentary analysis. Use of Amartya Sen’s capability approach revealed that: a) class-based spatial exclusion persisted not only across but also at times within schools, always intersecting with differential access to dominant languages, nullifying the benefit of instruction in mother tongue. Once class-based differences had translated into acquisition of differently valued languages, spatial inclusion in higher education meant little; b) Emergent exclusionary processes were not only cognitive but also social and psychological in nature, affecting individual in different degrees based on class positioning and at times existed along with processes of inclusion; c) Educational institutions played an active role in constructing an imagined privileged monolingual centre (with English only as the norm), perpetuating discourses of Othering; d) Deconstruction of the monolingual centre revealed it to be illusory, neither inclusive or legitimate in the multilingual context. The paper argues that inclusivity in education at the nexus of class and language needs to be de-segregative and responsive to the multilingual context.